1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image recording apparatuses and image recording methods, and more particularly to an image recording apparatus and image recording method in which a plurality of pieces of image data are recorded by storing them in a single image file.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-266420 (FIG. 4) discloses an image data recording method that records a plurality of continuous still images in such a manner that compressed data on the continuous still images generated in one recording operation forms a unit made up of independent compressed data pieces of the still images.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-274091 (FIG. 9) discloses an image data generation apparatus that generates image data from images from a plurality of viewpoints, wherein file headers for the images from the plurality of viewpoints and image information are combined into a single file in an existing format.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-229291 (Paragraph [0125], FIG. 7) discloses an image recording apparatus that saves 3D image data by generating a new folder and saving the 3D image data, right-eye image data, and left-eye image data together in that folder.
If an image file containing a plurality of concatenated pieces of image data is given a special extension different from those for conventional standard image files, the image file cannot be recognized as an image file by image processing apparatuses and image processing applications that do not support that extension. Therefore, to such an image file, it may be possible to give an extension for conventional standard image files (an extension corresponding to the encoding format of the pieces of image data included in the image file, e.g., JPG) so that the image file can be recognized as an image file by conventional image processing apparatuses and so on. Thus, even in an image processing apparatus having no function of reading a plurality of pieces of image data from an image file in which a plurality of pieces of image data are stored and performing processing such as reproducing, the image file can be treated in the same manner as a standard image file. Therefore, at least the first one of the pieces of image data in the image file can be read.